Launch day starts out normal enough. After breakfast you lounge around, read the paper, watch a few episodes of The Jetsons. 10
One thing we learned before we even lifted off was who was really in charge, who would have the last word. A few days before launch, they discovered cracks in the fins on our booster. Because we were eager to go and not happy with the 5-day delay required to replace the cracked fins, we started to refer to the booster as old Humpty Dumpty. Well, somehow that got out in the press, and of course, didn't sit too well with those who were working around the clock to get the booster ready in time. But, much to their credit, these guys said nothing... at least not until 20 minutes before launch when we got a message, "Good luck and God speed, from all the King's horses and all the King's men." 11
Liftoff is an exciting time, and any crewperson who is not excited, doesn t really understand what s about to happen. One crisp cool morning, you ride in a van with some of your friends out to a 37-story building, just as you ve done many times before. It s all so familiar. 12
Then you take an elevator to the top floor of the building, walk along a hallway, and wait to enter a small room. As you lean against the metal gantry, you feel structure popping and creaking and groaning under the weight and frigid temperatures of a million pounds of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and you see lights blinking, computers flashing, and gases venting you realize that today, the booster s alive! You try to keep the smile off your face as you slip into that small room, lie in a couch, and stare at a very familiar scene. After a few hours, one of your friends outside starts counting backwards from ten, you hear a tremendous sucking sound as propellants are ripped into combustion chambers a noise my crewmate said sounded like they had just simultaneously flushed every toilet in the Astrodome. 13
Then, far below and lasting less than a second, you feel five engines ignite in a ripple fire, and you creep off the pad. The front of your mind is focused on gauges and abort procedures, while a little voice in the back of your mind tells you, The basement just exploded. 14
The ride on the first stage is noisy and rough, like on a high-speed train with square wheels. At about around one minute into the flight, you go through the speed of sound and also reach the maximum of the aerodynamic forces and turbulence that builds up as you ram through the wall of air resistance ahead of you. The vibration becomes severe; you feel like a fly glued to a paint shaker. Then it smoothes out a little until staging at two minutes, which jolts you like a head-on crash quickly followed by a sharp impact from the rear. 15
The second stage is like a long, smooth elevator ride that accelerates ever faster as the mass of the propellants burns away. Eventually you weigh five times your normal weight, which is not bad because your heart is at the same elevation as your head. But it s hard to lift a hand, and you notice your cheeks and ears sliding towards the back of your head. Then, at a little over eight minutes, the engines cut off sharply and immediately, everything floats. Your spacecraft, which they tried so hard to keep clean at the Cape, fills up with small dirt and debris that floats up from hiding places on the floor. You see a nut, a screw, and some washers float by, and briefly wonder where they came from. In short order, the air conditioning cleans it all up. 16
Outside you see the curved horizon and the coast of Florida receding. Hey, this is the best simulation yet! You look back in at the gages and throw a few switches to get ready for the rendezvous with the Space Station. 17
When you glance out again, you see Sicily off the boot of Italy going by and understand what it s like to travel at five miles a second. After a presentation when I got back, a highway patrolman stepped forward and presented me with a ticket. Said he d clocked me at 18,000 mph... in a 40! The fine was $23,450. 18